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# Privacy

In a nutshell, privacy is extremely important to me and I try to minimize the collection and use of
user data as much as possible for the project to function correctly.

## The website

This website does not use analytics, advertising cookies, or browser storage. The only third party
requests are to `status.commongrounds.fun` for the project's uptime monitors and to Cloudflare which
delivers the website and receives your IP address and request information.

## The game

The game opens on a separate subdomain from this website (`play.commongrounds.fun`). Its local storage
remembers your in-game settings and cosmetics but is not used for fingerprinting, tracking,
analytics, or other forms of user profiling.

Game data that your browser saved before the game moved to `play.commongrounds.fun` does not
carry over. Your browser keeps it under the old address until you clear that site's data.

User IPs are visible to the server and third party providers (Akamai and Cloudflare). They are only
used for basic functionality such as allowing connection to the servers and enforcing bans and mutes
and are not permanently retained on the server or shared with third parties not mentioned here,
including in-game moderators, whatsoever. The server also stores account information, cosmetics,
saved progress, and moderation records for all users. If you sign in with Newgrounds, the game links
your Newgrounds account identifier to a game account as well. Messages and actions that you share in
the game are visible to other players and may be logged by the server for moderation purposes. Avoid
sharing personal information in chat.

Once per play session, your game sends the server a short performance report so I can find out why
the game runs badly on machines I do not own. It measures how long the game took to start, how much
shader compilation it did, how smoothly it ran, and what browser, graphics card and graphics
settings it ran on. It carries nothing you typed and nothing you did in the game. The server files
it against your account, your display name and your IP address, and writes that to a log on the
server so I can tell one machine's reports apart from another's. That log is capped at a few
megabytes and rolls over, so it holds only the most recent reports rather than a history.

You can turn this off. In the game, open settings, go to the Social tab, and switch off **Share
performance data** under Privacy. With it off the game sends nothing at all — not an empty report,
not a flag.

Aside from the persistent data mentioned above, no additional user data is collected, permanently
retained, analyzed, or shared with unauthorized third parties or services whatsoever.

## Contact

For privacy questions or a request about your data, send me a direct message on
[x.com](https://x.com/fractalcounty) or use the [feedback](/feedback) page.
